I’m Sorry, Christian, But You Don’t Get to Make That Move

“Even if all of this is (unimaginably) true, as Christians—as followers of Jesus—we live by a different script when it comes to what we’re supposed to do with the threat of bad people doing bad things. Jesus said a lot of weird things that are sometimes hard to make heads or tails of. But one thing Jesus wasn’t at all ambiguous about was how those who followed him were supposed to think about and treat their enemies. On this matter, he was painfully, uncomfortably, crystal clear.”

I have a bone to pick with Christians this morning. Not all Christians. Not even the majority of Christians in my (limited) circles. Not by a long shot. No, my concern is with a smaller subset of Christians that tend to make a disproportionate amount of noise. Over the past few weeks, I’ve had a lot of conversations with Christian people about the Syrian refugee crisis. I’ve observed a lot of reaction and response from Christian people online. And I’ve noticed some of these Christian brothers and sisters buying into the fear and the hysteria that attempts to convince us that we need to keep our nation’s doors resolutely closed to refugees from this part of the world.